The IT pros behind Tech Data’s Technology Solutions Center

While the signs are mixed about whether or not the long-awaited technology refresh has arrived, there’s no mistaking the technology refresh that swept through Tech Data’s Technology Solutions Center in recent months.

A team of systems engineers, business development representatives and product sales champions have been busily working to augment the center’s existing solutions-demonstration capabilities with the latest in-demand and emerging technologies, as well as hot vertical market applications. Their goal: make Tech Data’s Technology Solutions Center—the premier facility of its kind in the channel—an even more valuable resource for resellers.

Hundreds of resellers visit the solutions center each month to demonstrate a broad array of IT solutions for their end-user customers, as well as to train their own sales and technical employees on the latest technologies. This 6,000-square-foot facility houses more than $7 million worth of technology products from more than 150 leading hardware and software producers. Solutions on hand include data center and networking infrastructure, unified communications, document imaging, video surveillance, digital signage and more. The center also is home to Tech Data’s Apple Lab, the Cisco Solutions Center at Tech Data and the Symantec Solutions Center at Tech Data, as well as the new Healthcare IT Pavilion and the nearly complete Unified Communications Center.

Keeping the solutions center up to date with the latest and greatest technology, as well as leading reseller trainings and demonstrations held in the facility, is the responsibility of Tech Data’s very highly skilled IT experts. Authority had the opportunity to talk to several members of the team and to ask about the solutions they support in the center, why VARs should take advantage of this service, some cool technologies they’ve deployed and the most innovative ways they’ve seen the facility used.

John Moegling
Tech Data Senior Systems Engineer – Microsoft

Area of Expertise
I have overall responsibility for all application software in the solutions center, especially the Microsoft Server technologies.

Advantages to VARs
I really try to help our resellers grow their incremental product sales. The solutions center allows us to show our partners what positive impact a product or technology can make for their customers.

Coolest Technology
I would say the one for me is our unified communications solutions. The impact of unified communications is very beneficial for the user and the company, and we can demonstrate that live.

Best-Kept Secret
No other distributor dedicates this much space to a solutions demo facility of this scale. That makes the Tech Data solutions center a valuable, exclusive resource, and we don’t charge resellers to use it.

Eric Sakala
Tech Data Senior Systems Engineer – Cisco

Area of Expertise
I support the majority of our Cisco infrastructure from a data, security and data center perspective. I currently demonstrate the security solutions, including the Cisco ASA platforms and modules, MARS, WAAS, WAAS Mobile and the Nexus 1000V.

Coolest Technology
Implementing the Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) B-Series servers, installing VMware, Cisco Nexus 1000V, the Cisco Nexus 5000 switch and communicating to the EMC storage with Cisco MDS switches.

Most Innovative Use
We recently had a customer score a big win with a university by showing them the Cisco UCS platform in action. It’s still a relatively new solution, so the center is a great sales tool for resellers to show it off.

Charlie Will
Tech Data Senior Systems Engineer – EMC

Area of Expertise
I support the EMC unified storage array located in the Cisco UCS data center. I also assist with the EMC unified storage arrays for our VMware solutions.

Advantages to VARs
IT people, as a rule, are a conservative bunch. In order to sell solutions to this group, resellers have to be able to sell comfort with that solution. The solutions center is a perfect tool to sell comfort. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a live solution demo is worth a million.

Coolest Technology
Unified management platforms. The underlying technology may have changed very little, at least in servers and storage, but the management interface to those technologies is making it much easier to deploy, provision and manage solutions.

Most Innovative Use
I have done numerous trainings in the lab to show the benefits of shared storage and data protection. I had a critical server go down on the morning of the training. I ended up switching the theme of that training to disaster recovery. I received the best feedback of any of my trainings ever.

Brett Johnson
Tech Data Systems Engineer – Symantec

Area of Expertise
I support the Symantec Solution Center at Tech Data. We typically demo Symantec’s Backup Exec, Backup Exec System Recovery, Enterprise Vault and Endpoint Protection. It gives us a chance to get hands-on work with these products and to get in front of our customers to show the products actually working.

Advantages to VARs
This is the only dedicated Symantec training room on the East Coast. Our customers can use this room for any sort of training, such as technical, demonstration, installation, licensing or general sales training.

Most Innovative Use
We conducted a joint training with VMware. Partners were trained on how Symantec software integrates and works directly with VMware.

Stacey Budd
Tech Data Associate Systems Engineer – CA

Area of Expertise
I support the backup of the solutions center primarily with CA ARCserve Backup. I demo CA ARCserve Backup, CA ARCserve Replication, CA ARCserve High Availability and CA ARCserve D2D solutions to resellers and their customers. I enjoy demonstrating the key features of these products and often get to interact with IT staffs, addressing their concerns and showing how CA solutions will meet their needs.

Advantages to VARs
Showing a product to an end user in a live environment increases the chances of closing deals and will often help uncover additional opportunities.

Coolest Technology
ARCserve High Availability. This product allows for automatic failover of Windows, Linux and Unix servers and applications. It is amazingly simple to set up and can be used to guarantee up time and continuous availability for most critical systems.

Best-Kept Secret
Many of our resellers aren’t aware that they are able to bring their customers on site to see live product demonstrations. That can be such a great way to close a deal.

Michelle Wangler
Tech Data Associate System Engineer – Liebert

Area of Expertise
Power and cooling— more specifically the Liebert Nfinity 20kVA UPS and Liebert CRV—which is our data center AC solution. This product was put in the data center when we glassed it in. We needed to cool that room because it houses four of the hottest-running racks in the center.

Advantages to VARs
If you have a data center that doesn’t have the proper cooling and power solution, you are over taxing your rack systems. They are more than likely running too hot, which burns out components by overheating, and you end up replacing them prematurely. Here, customers instantly feel what a properly cooled data center is like.

Coolest Technology
The Liebert CRV, of course! The unit has performed very well, and the monitoring sensors on the racks helped us locate and address hot spots. Also, the fact that we can adjust the baffles on the front of the CRV has made it very easy to change the direction of the airflow for a customized configuration.

Most Innovative Use
I have many Liebert VARs who have been in with their customers to show off the Liebert Nfinity 20kVA UPS and the Liebert CRV. They bring them in so they can see what the product looks like, how it sounds and how it will improve their data center.

Paolo Amato
Tech Data Senior Product Sales Champion – Physical Security Specialized Business Unit

Area of Expertise
I support the physical security solutions and demonstrate a full working model of a security installation. The complete installation includes surveillance cameras, recording software, a PoE switch, server, storage and monitors.

Advantages to VARs
I always ask resellers why they would spend money on all the expensive equipment needed to demonstrate a working surveillance model when we’ve done it for them.

Coolest Technology
The coolest part is the HD PTZ (Pan Tilt Zoom) cameras and the look on customers’ faces when they see the video quality.

Best-Kept Secret
That we have the ability to demo almost any camera we carry and can help build a solution to work in any environment.

Alex Lugo
Tech Data Business Development Representative – Apple Specialized Business Unit

Area of Expertise
The Apple Lab, however, I stay up to date on all the Apple ecosystem vendors and products that Tech Data also distributes.

Advantages to VARs
We show them how to integrate Macs into a Windows Server environment.

Coolest Technology
It’s Apple. Everything we have is cool! We even have an iPhone app developed by our video surveillance vendor videoNEXT that enables you to remotely monitor, playback and even control PTZ cameras.

Best-Kept Secret
More and more users are integrating Macs into their networks. Our lab provides the opportunity to work with Macs and integrate them into a Windows environment. In fact, we are working on binding the Xserve open directory to a Windows active directory server. This type of binding allows for Mac management through Windows active directory.

Bob Watson
Tech Data Business Development Representative – Healthcare Specialized Business Unit

Area of Expertise
I assisted in creating the Healthcare IT Pavilion, and I’m responsible for adding new solutions, hosting tours and trainings.

Advantages to VARs
This is a great resource for our healthcare IT resellers. They can come in and touch the different products in a real-world environment, so when they’re out on sales calls at doctors’ offices they will have a good knowledge of the products and services that doctors will need.

Coolest Technology
Some of the EHR solutions we have are very interesting. These solutions are brand new to the channel, and resellers can visit the Healthcare IT Pavilion to learn what it takes to sell, deploy and support these products.

Most Innovative Use
The grand opening of the Healthcare IT Pavilion was with our sales teams. We invited all the sales representatives down to engage vendors and to see the new products in action. That helped educate our own team to better support VARs who are interested in going after the IT demand in healthcare.